To Love and to Strangle
by Imaginarivalued
Summary: Commence Operation Domesticate Ogami.


Toki's first thought was that maybe aliens were real.

After all, there was apparently a secret group of homicidal Rare Kinds with a leader bent on world domination and tangentially consuming lunch bentos like he wanted to eat them into extinction, so _why not _aliens?

From what he could tell, they must've sucked out what was left of Ogami's shriveled head organ, because the guy was sort of trying to shove a bunch of laundry into the refrigerator, and looked perplexed when the wasabi didn't work properly as detergent.

It was as funny as it was sad, like watching a brain-damaged kitten playing with a ball of yarn. Except it was a ball of barbwires lined with superglue. He decided to record the heartwarming moment with his camcorder for the benefit of posterity, which was honestly sort of difficult, what with the makeshift eye-patch and all, depth perception for him was as far out of reach as Ogami's attempts to dry the wet socks with the microwave.

"The Sixth looks happy," Yuuki stated, watching Ogami diligently hanging pieces of toasts to dry on the clothesline while cheering the dark haired teen on.

Well, now that Yuuki mentioned it, the gloomy bastard did seem to be kinda in a good mood despite the obvious lack of higher brain functions and the expressionless meandering. Maybe the date (no matter how much the involved party was doomed to be either clueless or in frivolous denial) at the amusement park went better than everyone anticipated. Or maybe the aliens anal probed him and unleashed a latent sexual preference. Heheheh. Evil Toki giggle.

Before Toki could act on his impish inclinations, Rui suddenly barged into the kitchen with the look of someone who very recently burst free from a straitjacket. She scanned around wildly until her search quickly settled on Ogami, who at this point mistook an empty jar of pickles for his glove, and pointed like a child who just found Waldo. "Sakurakouji and Rei kissed!"

There was a poignant silence, during which the blonde power user swore he heard the blood curling scream of someone, who sounded suspiciously like Sakurakouji Goutoku, holwing in the distance.

"Whoa, seriously?" Toki nearly screeched, because _hot_ _damn_. "Wait, how do you—"

"SakurakoujiaskedmeforlipglossandwhenIaskedwhyshes aiditwasbecauseshedidn'twanttolosetoReiandneededto bepreparedsinceReimightstartaskingformorekissesbec ause _they totally kissed on their date_!" Rui exclaimed in a single, continuous breath as she hopped in overflowing excitement.

That seemed to have completely snapped Ogami out of his defunct mode since he was sort of gaping in utter horror and _holy crap_—

Toki spontaneously processed the concept a dozen times in his mind and came to the conclusion that it was real and that apparently Christmas came early this year, and instead of Santa Claus, it was Judge Dredd, bearing gifts of violent hammer times as he dispensed justice to all the naughty boys and girls as he spouted brilliant one-liners in iambic pentameter.

Yuuki had started doing a weird victory dance while chanting 'Erogami' to the tune of _We Are the Champions_. In _dubstep_.

Rui was still kinda hopping as she rummaged her secret stash and popped open a bottle of Champaign to celebrate. All by herself, naturally, since everyone else present was underage and she was just being a dutiful, responsible adult.

Ogami was busy staring at the wall and twitching in a very specific order from his left ear and crossing every nerve juncture all the way to the ring finger in his left arm, thrumming the pickle jar like a rattle snake rattles its tail.

Toki decided to express his newfound early Christmas spirit by laughing his ass off. Oh, and filming _everything_ with awesome commentary.

He didn't even care when that sourpuss of a bastard delivered a roundhouse strong enough to send him flying into the cupboards like a factory rejected ragdoll and stormed out like the embarrassing wussy that he totally was. He just continued his noisy merriment even as a dozen of Nyanmaru cereal boxes littered over him.

"I am _so_ going to upload all of this on Youtube."

* * *

Sakura was trying to kill him.

It was the only explanation.

Sakura was obviously some sort of secret covert clandestine double sleeper agent planted by Eden and she just received orders to smother him to death with slender assassinating arms, freshly shampooed hair, and her soft, destructive bosom.

It was the only logical deduction, Ogami's severely fagged mind vehemently decided. From their first meeting at early childhood, to her fate contrived witnessing of his cleansing evil by blue fire that resulted in her doggedly aggressive intent on persuading him to reform his ways in the name of justice and peace and reasonable violence, to her now persistence in entangling their lives and living arrangements that employed tactics having involved marriage contracts and pop idol concerts and now _using him as a full body pillow._

It was already bad enough that he kept getting text messages from Sakurakouji Goutoku. The man had somehow managed to create poetry solely from using the words: kill, die, stab, neuter, and strangle. All annoyances aside, though, it was actually a rather impressive feat.

It all made perfect sense. Everything up until now had the marks made by the unseen hand of improbability too much to be coincidental. This all must've been a well-planned, well-crafted ploy by the Rare Kinds to render him incapacitated in the cruelest manner imaginable: pinned down by a cute girl as she snuggled against his chest and robbed him of all chance of a getting a good night's sleep.

She was obviously trained in some sort of ancient, devastating art of assassination employed by the shinobi forces during the Sengoku era. Something sinister sounding, like Hug-Fu, or Snuggle-Kwon-Do, or maybe even Oh-Dear-Shiva-She's-Whispering-His-Name-And-Smilin g-In-Her-Sleep-Thus-Looking-And-Smelling-All-Sorts -Of-Irresistable-And-Wearing-That-Set-Of-Pajamas-I s-Just-Not-Fair no Jutsu.

At some point in his newly developed nocturnal spiritual contemplations, Ogami found his face inexplicably close to his would-be killer's; close enough that the whispering of his name became synonymous with gentle, rhythmic breathing against his own lips and his very unsettled mind drifted to thoughts of an amusement park bathed under the crepuscular light when a set of rosy lips were much closer than they were now and—

Ogami forcibly pulled his head back at the expense of strained tendons in his neck while still being careful not to wake the girl slumbering against his chest. He then did his very best to bury his face into the pillow and stop his cerebral cells from undergoing apoptosis and stifle the mysterious "Nghrghar" sounds his throat was making.

Puppy, ever vigilant, sighed and patted the spazzing teen on the knee consolingly.

* * *

Toki smirked.

Ogami frowned.

Toki smirked wider.

Ogami glared.

Toki wagged his eyebrows.

Ogami began looking for a weapon.

Suddenly there was porno music, and Toki began performing a jig that looked like a perverse version of the Macarena.

Ogami felt his homicidal rage gain its own justified urge to kill.

Finishing with a pelvic thrust, Toki locked eye contact. "Bow Chika Wow Wow~."

Ogami quickly realized the futility of mute outrage, and so he punched the blond in the face with all of his might before slamming the door shut.

Toki pulled his head out of the wall, removed the splinters from his hair with a smirk, and looked down the end of the hall. "Did you get all that?"

Yuuki, holding the camcorder, gave a sharp thumbs-up.

Toki cackled.

* * *

He resisted the severe urge to cringe at the sight of Yuuki.

The boy's eyes started sparkling. Uh oh. "Are Nyanmaru and Kagemaru going to start making kittens?"

"… … …Nghrghar…"

Yuuki began counting off his fingers. "The first one would be named Ichimaru, then Akamaru, Midomaru, and Tobimaru and—" His eyes _shone_ with innocuous brilliance. "I could _kittysit_."

Ogami quickly distracted Yuuki with a well-placed Nyanmaru toy and closed the door.

* * *

He growled and opened the door, but found himself staring at thin air.

A small hand waved in his lower peripheral, and as he looked down at Nenene he desperately tried to formulate escape tactics.

The heterochromatic girl continued her innocent wave. "Tell Mii-tan and Hii-tan I said, 'konnichiwa~.'"

He closed the door after he silently watched the girl chase after a butterfly down the hall and around a corner.

That was a unexpectedly pleasant, he decided, and shut the door.

* * *

"Don't you go thinking that I approve of this," the giant pair of talking breasts snarled.

Ogami swayed slightly on his feet.

"You make one mistake, hurt Sakura-chan in any miniscule way, and I will hunt you down, break you into three pieces, feed them to the rabid dogs at the compost junkyard, and shatter whatever remaining manly parts you've got left," the big boobs continued, mustering enough tension in their threats to rival that of the tension in their bra straps.

He tried rolling his eyes, but only had enough energy to manage a cheek twitch.

"And no, um, no touching each other. And stuff. That's reserved for after you get married. Which I disapprove of! So no touching allowed at all!"

_Tell that to her_, Ogami wanted to say, but merely continued his sporadic cheek twitching.

Seemingly flustered, the pair of breasts bounced away, but not before magically manifesting a hand and out of nowhere and flipped him off before disappearing down the hall.

He finally managed to physically shrug and step back into the room.

Whatever. He still had Mii-tan and Hii-tan and _oh dear lord almighty what was wrong with him_.

* * *

Heike stared down with his eyebrow-less shadowy gaze in a manner that made Ogami want to call the police for the first time in his life.

Slowly, Heike smiled. It was probably the most unnerving thing ever witnessed by non-sexual deviants everywhere.

Then, the madman regally took out a book; a recent favorite of his shipped in from the USA by the seemingly innocent title of 50 Shades of Grey.

Ogami was proud of his reflexes, as he closed the door shut as politely as he could.

But then the unholy bastard started spamming Heike Magic right outside the door. It was really annoying. Like a century old ambulance scratching against a chalkboard. Or something. He really needed a nap.

With the resignation of an inmate, the teen opened the door again.

Heike already had the book unfolded in anticipation, and after simpering serenely as if he wasn't the evil decagenarian that he was, began to read, "His breathing is ragged, matching mine. 'When did you start your period, Anastasia?' he asks out of the blue, gazing down at me."

Ogami took a moment to coax his stroke out of hibernation.

" 'Err… yesterday,' I mumble in my highly aroused state," the man continued. "'Good.' He releases me and turns me around. 'Hold on to the sink,' he orders and pulls my hips back again, like he did in the playroom, so I'm bending down."

Ogami earnestly began to regret having ever learned English.

Then Heike pushed the boundaries of the impossible by grinning in a way that redefined debauchery. "He reaches between my legs and pulls on the blue string… what! And… a gently pulls my tampon out and tosses it into the nearby toilet."

So this was how it felt to painfully die in various places inside.

After ten more minutes of Heike randomly reading his favorite excerpts, the dark haired teen was finally allowed to close the door.

As Ogami tried to take a nap with his head pounding against the wall to facilitate amnesia, he finally decided that he should really stop answering the door.

* * *

Ogami's twitching arm knocked off various merchandises off the shelves.

The plan to board off the door and refuse to answer knocks didn't really pan out when Rui shattered aforementioned door with a kick thrust.

Before Ogami could gather enough ATP to be properly bewildered, he was dragged off on a shopping trip to the local convenience store, with Rui rambling on about proper couple etiquette and refusing to be an aunt before she's thirty or something.

So it was to the teen's utter distaste that he found himself staring blankly at a small stack of boxes of chewing gum as he tried not to make eye contact with the cashier while the others loudly perused.

Sakura frowned. "I do not think these selections are adequate. They all say 'for her pleasure.' I don't want to neglect Rei's pleasure."

Ogami could feel the intense stare from all the other customers.

Toki laughed. "Don't worry about that, Sakura-chan. Erogami will definitely be happy with whatever you choose. Hey, hey, pick up the rainbow colored one. Yeah, good, now," he instructed, and looked through the lens of the camcorder, "hold it up like it's a kitten. Good, now smile at the camera!"

"Kitty!?" Yuuki cheered as he leapt across the aisles, bringing with him a large bag.

"No, Yuuki-kun," Rui chastised motherly while also smacking Toki upside the head. "You can't keep buying more cat food when there's almost no space in the kitchen."

Yuuki blinked back innocently. "These aren't for me. They're for the Sixth and Nyanmaru's future kitties!"

Rui chuckled. "Nonetheless, the cupboards can't fit another bag right now. So go put it back."

Yuuki frowned a little dejectedly, but perked up when Sakura smiled and thanked him for his consideration on behalf of herself as well as Ogami.

The situation before her quickly resolved, Rui called out to Ogami as she maintained her hold on the struggling Toki's ear, "Rei-kun! What size are you?"

The only response she got was two dramatically twitching arms.

Rui huffed. "Fine. We're just going to have to buy all the sizes and you'll use whichever fits best."

Ogami glanced at the store clerk, who gave him an unreadable look, and felt the need to say, "There's this hypothetical...problem."

The cashier rolled his eyes. "Sir, I _want _your problem."

He didn't know how to respond to that.

* * *

Coming back from the store with a plastic bag hanging off his arm, Ogami was intent on heading back to his room and sleep inside the closet after setting several things on fire.

But apparently he had to go through the damn Cat first.

He and the Nyanmaru man stared at each other silently. One of them the biological father of the girl in eternal question while the other one held a bag containing boxes of cherry flavored condoms of various sizes.

Awkwardness sublime.

After they stared at each for who knew how many minutes, Ogami finally sighed with as much dignity as he could muster. "Do your worst. But I don't plan on doing _anything_."

Shibuya stood stock still, with his arms behind his back in his typical pedantic wise-sage pose.

But then, before Ogami could react, the man placed a fluffy hand on his shoulder.

"Indeed," the damn Cat said simply, and padded down the hall.

After the squeaky footsteps were gone, Ogami gritted his teeth, threw the bag against the wall, and stomped away.

* * *

Sakura cooked dinner. Or more accurately, Rui cooked dinner and Sakura helped by preparing her supposedly delicious Sakurakouji household recipe of nikujaga. But it made no difference to him because the nikujaga was the only thing he ate that night, not that Rui minded in the least, given the way she was smirking at him.

Sakura made enough for everyone, naturally. But in a rare display of biasness by the smiling girl, Ogami found himself staring at a miniature mountain of meat and potatoes while Shibuya, Toki, and Yuuki had to fight each other over more portions after Rui sent waves of ocular death washing over them as she announced to the upstarts that Sakura cooked especially for Ogami. For him.

He took a bite, swallowed, and remained silent.

As Sakura smiled a little bashfully and eagerly asked him how everything tasted, he suddenly couldn't bring himself to remind her that he couldn't taste anything for as long as he could remember.

Instead, he finished the entire bowl placed before him, and asked for more.

He looked away when she beamed at him.

* * *

Ogami and Sakura stared at each other with wide eyes.

The girl was seated on the bed, wearing some sort of furry two piece cat suit complete with cat ears and tail accessories.

He could feel it. Both his blood pressure and something planetary were brimming with anticipation.

The girl suddenly jerked out of her stupor and hurriedly held up a queue card, and read, "Um, I am a naughty kitty, nya. I need to be disciplined, nya."

And there it was. The planets W, T, and F finally breached astronomical improbabilities and came into alignment.

"Turn the card over," Sakura continued to read, and did as instructed. "Do the Caramelldansen." She smiled brightly.

Ogami blinked. "Wut."

He swallowed whatever else he was going to say because the girl got to her feet and _where is that weird music coming from _and then she caricatured animal ears with her hands as she whole body danced in place and _why is that he could never stop staring_ and then Puppy joined in by her feet as it brought along a familiar plastic bag with familiar boxes and _why was her midriff so hypnotic and_—

"Coconut!" Ogami practically screamed, causing the girl to stiffen.

"But, Rei—"

"Coconut!" he reiterated, before dashing past her because he caught the gleam of reflected light in the shadowed corner of the room and bodily dragged a laughing Toki out with him because he would rather have all his fingernails ripped out before he left the blonde bastard in the same room with her when she was dressed like _that_—

"Coconut," he finished lamely at the pouting girl, closed the door roughly, and began looking for a proper place to commit justified incineration.

* * *

"Dude, are you gay or something?"

Ogami slumped on the patio as he glared through the night at Toki, who was casually nibbling on an unlit cigarette several paces away.

He had pretended long enough. No amount of pretending was going to change anything. His feet were forever rooted halfway in hell. He had pretended to be human long enough. The frog did not transform into a prince with a kiss, and trash cannot magically become man once again.

Just because she kept coming at him, with resolve, with all of her heart, changed absolutely nothing. Just because she made him feel like a human for brief moments of light during his self-imposed descent into the darkness, meant nothing. Just because she was an unbearably all-encompassing warmth as she tried to keep getting closer every night shouldn't mean anything. And just because she was willing to risk herself didn't mean things could go back to a time neither of them could barely remember anymore aside in dreams. Just because she gave away something that was supposedly precious to her, something a trash of humanity didn't deserve by any stretch of the imagination. She shouldn't—

"She gave away something to _someone who doesn't deserve it_."

He didn't whine. He didn't whine, because his was a fortitude forged by the blue flames of the abyss and tempered by the dark winds on the accelerated downwards path to Hell paved by the ashes of the dead. His was a clock meant to stop, to cease ticking quietly and unheard, like a whisper in an empty room, on a wall with no one to see and no sun to bring it to light, as he continued on destroying the evils plaguing the world until the very last movement of that unbiased second hand. That was his purpose, the same with all of the Code: Breakers. And upon Hitomi's last moments, the foolish man understood that with a smile. And he knew, that Toki, even with all his demented, misplaced optimistic mirth, understood just as well.

Toki took one more imaginary drag of his unlit cigarette as he gazed at the crescent moon. "You really are an idiot."

The blonde scratched his head, ignoring Ogami's glare, and started heading back into the mansion. "You have to be some special kind of stupid, if you think for even one moment that she can actually be happy without you."

With those final words, Ogami was left alone on the porch with the night breeze and silver moonlight.

Well, until Toki came scrambling back and asked for the return of his beloved camcorder.

With not a small amount of relish, Ogami transformed the recording device into melted, metallic goo and left the sobbing Toki alone on the porch with the night breeze and silver moonlight and the smell of burnt compost.

* * *

Ogami's bloodshot eyes twitched.

Sakura smilingly breathed as she snuggled in closer, which was probably an accomplishment since she was already sort of draped over like particularly stubborn, amorous bed sheets.

She was out of the rather titillating neko-girl outfit and back into her plain pajamas. Naturally, that still didn't quite put him completely at ease.

But he was no longer thinking about the warmth of her skin and the teasing, silky touch of her hair, and nor was he thinking about the possibility of an ending filled with dark fires and blood. He was tired. So, very tired. Of many things. And the conglomerate of his senses screamed at him for relief.

And he would give it, but not before exacting a little vengeance. It hardly seemed fair for him to always be on tilt.

So, with thoughts of 'all is fair in war and more war,' Ogami mindlessly, slowly, curled his arm, pulled her in just slightly, and made the distance between their faces zero. In a few seconds, he finally succumbed to sleep; in that exact position.

And that was how Ogami learned to tolerate human companionship in the same bed.

It was also how Sakura learned to glow bright red in the dark.

* * *

In a room lit only by the ghostly light from the computer monitor, Heike typed away with his trademarked, devious little smirk in place.

"Well, Toki-kun?" he said loftily.

The blond emerged from the shadows with a smirk of his own. He reached into his right pocket and flicked the retrieved item forward, with Heiki snatching it out of the air without even a cursory glance.

Heiki gave a mute, satisfied cackle as he inserted the flash drive. "Thank you very much, Toki-kun." He began clicking and typing away. "As agreed, you'll be given extra credit for your performance grading. That is all I need from you at the moment."

Toki bristled. "Pffft! I don't care about that, you crazy old bastard. Just make sure someone suffers humiliation for the untimely death of my Sony HDR-PJ790V9 Handycam."

Heiki only continued typing away.

Toki gave a short sneer before starting for the door. He paused at the threshold. "You know, sometimes I think you're a villain in disguise."

Heiki only continued typing away.

"...look, whatever you're up to, don't meddle with those two. Too much, anyway." With that, Toki completely departed.

In the now silent room, punctuated only by the semi-continuous sounds of the keyboard and computer, Heiki smirked under the bangs of his illuminated, white hair as, with a final click, the headings and various components of a website came to digital composition.

"All for my ideal Eden."

A dark laugh echoed into the hall.

* * *

**AN**: First important thing. This is the official posted fanfic of imaginarivalued ver. 2.0. Why 2.0? Because the original author, my brother, is gone forever. Okay, not forever, but very much like it. He's in med-school now, and is currently swamped by various degrees of sleep deprivation, which probably makes this silly fic ironic in some ways. Anywoo, as ver. 2.0, I'm taking over now, so be warned. I mean, if you care at all.

Next, an apology. Sorry. This was done months ago. Like, five months ago. Why did I only post it now? Because I forgot about it, that's why. Real Life is the kidney stone in my fanfiction awareness. Anyway, some awesome OgamiSakura moments happened in the manga. Squee. Oh, also awesome Heike moments. That man deserves a Nobel Prize for literature. Like, all of them. Granted, the awesomeness may not last much longer since the manga is most likely on the path to a proper ending now, but we'll see.

By the way, I remember a while ago there was someone who wrote nice little batches of well written OgamiSakura fics. I was about to critique/fangirl over them but then I noticed they've gone and done the vanishing act. Anyone know what the eff is up?


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